Wednesday, December 31, 2003. Last night, coming home from
work, I saw folks lined up for yards outside the Main Street Theatre.

Since today is the last day of the year, I drove around southeast
Sauk Centre on my way home from work tonight. I expect that quite a few
folks will have their displays off after tonight, and I wanted to have
another look while the magic was still here.

The inflatable snowman on Main Street is still holding a candy cane
proudly aloft, but the
Santa next to it is a rumpled pile of red fabric on the snow.

Saturday, December 27, 2003. Christmas eve morning, Wednesday,
was beautiful in this area. Thick frost had formed on trees overnight. I
took a picture, and added it to the photo
album.

It warmed up on Friday: highs in the forties. When I grilled at noon
today, there was standing water underfoot, and water dripping off the
roof.

The flu is a problem here, as it is in most parts of the country. St.
Michael's Hospital has limited visitors to the immediate family of
patients. As of earlier this week, no one had been admitted to the
hospital because of the flu, but they're being cautious anyway.

Construction work at St. Mike's is proceeding, too. They've got most
of the old east parking lot torn up, with a good-sized excavation in
front of the hospital.

I read in the paper that the winter parking rules have changed.
Starting next month, most streets will be no-parking zones from 1 am to
7 am, from November 1 to April 1. They're changing the way the announce
snow emergencies. In the past, the city used Charter Cable company to
let people know. Since Mainstreet Communications and satellite dishes
came to town, Charter Cable reaches less than half the people. I'm not
entirely clear on how snow emergencies will be handled now.

This may seem trivial, but what to do with your vehicle can be a real
problem in the winter: especially if you live in an apartment or some
place without off-street parking.

Saturday, December 20, 2003. The new City Hall building had an
open house on Thursday of this week. I didn't go, but I understand that
they've got enough of the walls up inside to let people know what it
will look like. There's plastic sheeting around the window-wall on the
east side of the building now.

Downtown, sidewalks were scraped almost clear after the snowfall.
Then salt pellets were dropped on the fraction of an inch of compacted
snow that remained. The result was a thin coat of compacted snow and
ice, decorated with that fascinating pattern of worm-tracks that salt
pellets leave as they melt their way through snow and ice.

Most people who will have Christmas displays up this year have them
in place by now. I've seen cars slow down while driving by some of the
more spectacular light shows.

Wednesday, December 17, 2003. With another inch of snow
forecast for tonight, it looks quite certain that we'll have a white
Christmas here.

The biggest event in Sauk Centre this week, for some folks at least,
is the opening of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King at the
Main Street Theatre. The first
show started there tonight at 7:30 - all three and a half hours of it.
I'm hoping to see it with the majority of my family this weekend.

Although it isn't a local event, I feel that I should note the 100th
anniversary of the first successful powered flight, by the Wright
brothers, there at Kitty Hawk.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003. The several inches of snow forecast
for this area didn't come, at least not locally. I can't say that I'm
disappointed. I'm told that there were whiteout conditions in the area
last night. Schools are pretty much back on schedule now. The roads are
slick, though, and the plows have been going around town.

Monday, December 15, 2003. Alexandria, Minnesota, Osakis, and
at least a half-dozen other communities in this areas closed their
schools early today. There's a winter storm coming. By the time I went
home from work windshields, sidewalks, streets, and just about every
other exposed surface was covered with a light speckling of frozen
droplets. Later on, with the snow that is supposed to follow, the roads
should be in rare form.

Friday, December 12, 2003. Yesterday morning, a little before
8:00, it was -10°F in Alexandria. Things were
warmer here in Sauk Centre. The thermometer outside our north window
showed -8°F. Today I read on the
KSTP website that this morning had
the coldest temperatures of the season, statewide. According to them,
Tower won the deep freeze prize with -30°F, with Embarrass and
International Falls trailing with -26°F and -23°F respectively. They
also had an article Thursday which helpfully pointed out that at
temperatures where water is a mineral, a poorly-tuned car may be hard to
start.

Folks in town have been getting their Christmas decorations up. The
local Knights of Columbus have their crèche scene up on Main Street,
just south of the inflatable snowman and Santa Claus. Some yards are
thick with lighted snowmen, wire-frame animals, and flashing lights.
Quite a few of the east side addition homes have some combination of
lighted Christmas trees in their windows, monochrome light strings along
the edges of the roof, and lawn displays. One household even outlined
the evergreen trees lining their back yard with strings of lights.

Friday, December 5, 2003. A little snow Thursday gave a fresh
cover to lawn, but didn't add much depth. Christmas decorations are up
now on many houses. More people seem to be using those abstract spiral
Christmas tree light ropes this year. Lighted wire frame animals are on
display, too. I even saw a moose in one yard: much less than life-size,
of course, about three and a half feet at the shoulder.

On Main Street, around the south side of downtown, The inflatable
snowman on Main Street, in the south 500 block, has been joined by an
inflatable Santa Claus. By the time I was going home tonight, they were
both flat on the ground. During the day, though, they make a cheerful
display.

Sauk Centre now has two coffee shops on Main Street. One is a coffee
shop and restaurant, the other an antique and collectibles store with a
coffee shop.

I noticed a portable sign outside the old Cenex station on 4th and
Main on Monday. It read "Jitters Java Cafe Now Open." The next
day, I stopped in to see what it looked like.

Jitters Java is "casual upscale:" coffee posters on the wall, a chess
table in one corner, armchairs around a "fireplace" with a magazine rack
with titles ranging from Popular Science to Saveur. I
understand they'll have the tables and chairs for outdoor seating soon.
I think that'll be more popular when it's warmer. The place has a good
view northwest towards Sauk Centre downtown, with several tables and
barstool-window seats to take advantage of it. They've even got a
drive-in window on the south side of the building, and take call-in
orders.

I understand that Java Jitters has been open since Saturday, November
23. They've got Espresso and other coffees, sandwiches, ice cream, and
baked goods, and plan to expand their menu.

Down the street, near 6th on Main, across from the Marc'ette Place
flower shop, the "Main Street Coffee Company" sign is sporting a cluster
of balloons. The house is festooned with Christmas lights. The Friday
after Thanksgiving, Main Street Coffee Company and Original Main Street
Antiques moved there from their spot at the back of a hair styling place on
the corner of Sinclair Lewis and Main.

From the outside, it's an ordinary house, with a lighted "Espresso
OPEN" sign in the window. There was an 'open. sign in the door when I
was there, so I went in. After going through a small porch with a bench
and chair along one wall, I was in a room filled with what we call
collectibles and antiques these days. There's a bookcase covering much
of the south wall, and some comfortable-looking furniture.

That's Original Main Street Antiques. The Main Street Coffee Company
is in the back. They've got pastries, Abdallah candy, and more kinds of
specialty coffees than I knew existed in my youth. I'm half Norwegian,
and grew up in Northern Minnesota: I knew that the four food groups are
meat, potatoes, vegetables, and coffee, but only later discovered how
much ground the term "coffee" covers.

Sunday, November 30, 2003. Thanksgiving Day is over, and the
first Sunday of Advent is drawing to a close. Quite a few households in
town have Christmas displays up. On Main Street, around the south side
of downtown, an inflatable snowman has once again taken its heroic
stand. As in previous years, this stalwart icon is already losing
pressure, but will not abandon its post.

Wednesday, November 26, 2003. Sauk Centre put up Christmas
street decorations today. This evening, a stream of west-bound traffic
on the Interstate marked the start of this year's Thanksgiving holiday
weekend.

Ice, thin, but ice nevertheless, is probably back on Sauk Lake. It's
hard to tell, under that half-foot of snow we got last weekend.

Two of the new street lamps are up on Sinclair Lewis Avenue now, on
the north side of the new city hall's block.

Monday, November 24, 2003. We had roughly six inches of snow
on the ground this morning, but the sky was clear as only a winter sky
can be. School was two hours late: Snow and wind had continued through
the night, but not quite as enthusiastically as on Sunday.

Saturday, November 22, 2003. The service interruption early
this morning seems to have been quite short.

There's a Winter Storm Warning out for much of Minnesota and
surrounding areas today and tomorrow, with a good chance that we'll have
a half-foot of snow by Monday. As of this evening, not much has happened
locally.

Friday, November 21, 2003. Brendan's Island will be
unavailable for a few hours tonight, starting Midnight (Central time,
USA). I understand that the outfit that hosts this site is moving to new
(and improved) quarters, and will have to be off the Web during part of
the process.

Now, to something more interesting:

At the start of this week it looked like we might have a very short
winter. Ice was off Sauk Lake, except for a little just above the dam.
Waterfowl that winter around there were still hanging around below the
dam, however, where the water stays clear year-round, most years.

This Tuesday, I saw my first outdoor Christmas lights at a residence
in Sauk Centre. By now, several households have their Christmas lights
up and running. The stores, of course, have had Christmas stuff on the
shelves for weeks by now.

The south side of the new city hall looks like a fire department
building now, and the east side has windows and most of the exterior
"stonework" in place.

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue saga may be drawing to a close. On Monday,
sidewalks had been poured on both sides of the street where S. L. Avenue
meets Main Street. By today, sidewalks have been poured as far west as
Walnut Street. The "Road Closed" sign was down on the west end of the
construction zone this afternoon, and a "Road Work Ahead" sign set up at
the side of the street. By the time I went home, about 6:00, the "Road
Closed" sign at Main Street was down, too. Near downtown this afternoon,
I saw someone driving a small green car on Sinclair Lewis Avenue. Its
hood was almost covered with orange traffic cones: not a bad way to move
them around, if you're not going far.

Now as the weekend is coming, winter is about to re-assert itself.
This afternoon there was a mix of snow and rain in South Dakota heading
our way. The weather forecast says that we can look forward to several
inches of snow before the weekend is over.

Friday, November 14, 2003. The Sinclair Lewis Avenue saga has
entered a new phase. "Road Closed" signs are still up at both ends of
the project, but the paving has been complete. Early this week, they
started pouring sidewalks on the north side of the street, downtown.

The photo service that has been in the storefront at the back of
Winter's Main Street Drug has moved into larger quarters, one door west.
They're now in the space formerly occupied by
Gold 'N More.

I saw the first Christmas decorations of
the season (outside a store, that is) in Osakis this Wednesday. Someone
had a big reindeer-and-sleigh-shaped arrangement of colored lights up in
their yard: festive, colorful, and very early!

Sunday, November 9, 2003. Sauk Centre high school students put
on a production of Fiddler on the Roof last Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday. The two nights I went, the 900+ seat auditorium was nearly
full: only 20 empty seats on Friday, I'm told.

I'm slightly biased about the production: my second-oldest daughter
had the part of Yente, and provided the actual violin music for the
on-stage Fiddler, who did a fine job of playing without making a sound.
The same young actor who was the Fiddler had two other roles in the
play. All in all, a good show.

Saturday, November 8, 2003. Yesterday Sauk Lake had a skin of
ice: not very thick, and certainly not ready for anything much larger
than a bird to walk on.

This week, I noticed a few changes in town. Several houses near St.
Michael's Hospital are gone. At this point, the sandlot where they stood
is parking for St. Mike's employees.

On south Main Street, near 6th, across from Marc'ett Floral, a house
has a new sign outside. It is now the site of Main Street Coffee
Company.

Wednesday, November 5, the building which had housed the Land Gas &
Tire Shop and a great deal of vacant space got torn down. Land moved
operations to the north end of town, and is sharing space with Flowers
Auto. The old building had formed the north side of the Family Dollar
Store main parking lot. By Friday the debris had been cleared away, the
hole where the basement was filled in, and a layer of sand smoothed over
the site.

Tuesday, November 4, 2003. The ground is covered with several
inches of white, heavy, snow. A good start to the winter.

Oops. Missed something! Today, I discovered that I missed a couple of
business openings and moves around Labor Day. The old VFW building went
through massive renovation, and is now home to Team Access Mortgage,
Sauk Valley Veterinary Service, and Jimmy's Pizza (a new
pizza place in town, open 4 to 10 Sunday through Thursday, 4 to 11
Friday and Saturday - they do takeout 351-7992). The mortgage
place opened first, the veterinary service opened a day after Labor Day,
and Jimmy's Pizza opened there around the 14th of September. With the
Sinclair Lewis Avenue roadwork blocking traffic a few hundred feet east
of them, I hadn't been past that location since summer.

Monday, November 3, 2003. Sauk Centre had its first snowfall
today, and there's a winter weather advisory out for tonight. Coming
home from work today I saw a few cars go sailing past, whose drivers
were learning the effects of inertia on moving systems.

Sunday, November 2, 2003. Driving through downtown Sauk Centre
today, I noticed that Sinclair Lewis Avenue appears to have a surface on
it from Main Street west. The downtown sidewalks are chewed up,
resembling a sandbox after recess, but there's fresh concrete poured
farther west.

Saturday, November 1, 2003. This week we had the first
snowfall that stayed on the ground: for a few hours, at least. Halloween
has come and gone, and temperatures are now staying around the freezing
point.

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue road work progresses. On Thursday, near
Jerry's Northstar, the north and south thirds of the street had paving
on them. Down the middle there was the compacted sand that we've gotten
used to seeing. The last time I looked, there was no paving at the Main
Street end.

Our new city hall is getting move along. There's a tower on the
southwest corner that received attention this week.

Work on Our Lady of the Angels church also progresses. Last weekend,
we heard that the bell tower is now structurally sound. On the first big
occasion, we hope to hear bells again. One of the next steps will be to
make more of the windows weather-tight, and repair damage done to some
of the windows by some sort of projectile. Inside that church, there
used to be a picture of Mary over the altar. It was painted over several
years ago. Now, an artist has been found who will put a new picture up.
That should happen this spring.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003. More rain, snow, and undecided
precipitation today. I got a flu shot at a sort of clinic set up at the
Coborn's pharmacy this morning. There wasn't actually much of a line,
but about four people went through the process while I was waiting to
see if I had a reaction. (It's been about a quarter century since I had
that sort of inoculation, and they wanted to see what happened.)

This evening, I noticed that the Schutz Taekwando
Academy banner on the west side of Main Street has a big Coca Cola logo
on it. As Yakov Smirnoff says, "what
a country!" One more thing: that bank clock downtown is now set to the
correct time.

Monday, October 27, 2003. As usual, after the twice-a-year
ceremonial clock re-set, there's been a little confusion. I stayed late
at work today, and was driving home in the dark. Passing a bank on main,
I was shocked to see that the bank clock read "7:40!" I knew I was late,
but that was ridiculous! They'll probably have that digital light show
re-programmed soon.

Schutz Taekwando Academy had a banner
above the door on the Main Street side of the new corridor north of the
Ben Franklin store.

We're experiencing the usual sort of autumn weather here: grey skies,
and precipitation that can't make up its mind whether it wants to be
rain or snow.

On the road-work front, the 12th Street project has a surface on it,
but hasn't been finished. There's still about an inch to go before the
road surface reaches the bottom of the curb.

Saturday, October 25, 2003. After
a little rain this morning, we had the season's first snow this
afternoon, a little after two. For the most part, the flakes were big
and fluffy: a picture-postcard sort of snow. The snowfall didn't last
much past three, and none accumulated on the ground that I could see.

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue saga
continues. Curbs are in place from Main Street westward and the street
itself has a drivable dirt surface on it. It's still a road work site,
though. The Sauk Centre City News & Views reports that work on
12th Street, on the south side, should be complete by November 1. That
project involved new curbs & gutters, and fresh paving. The downtown
project is on a rather grander scale. We're expecting to have
old-fashioned acorn style streetlighting on Sinclair Lewis Avenue by
the time they're through, along with a wider street and new sidewalks.

And I see that there's an "open house
walk-through tour" at the new city hall planned for sometime during the
winter. They're expecting to move in during March of 2004.

Down at the Stearns County fairground,
folks have been working on a sort of Monster Manor: a spook house for
Halloween. That's been an annual feature for quite a while now.

Thursday, October 16, 2003. The Treonne's storefront, north of
Gold 'N More's new location, is empty now, with plastic sheeting behind
the windows. On the other side of Main Street, and next block south,
work continues at the old Cenex building. I've heard that the new eatery
there is still in process of construction, and that there's a lot of
work still to do.

Move over, Hollywood! Lake Wobegon Film Festival starts tomorrow at
the
Main Street Theatre,
and runs until Sunday. Among other things, they have an 'emerging
filmmakers. showcase: films and short videos made by "the next
generation of aspiring filmmakers," as they say on their
website.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003. Although this journal is mostly
about Sauk Centre, some events in nearby towns affect us, too, if only
indirectly. Cold Spring, about an hour down the road from Sauk Centre,
is going through another rough patch. I'd like to post a few details
about the Cold Spring community's response to the shootings there.

Aaron Rollins's memorial service was held Monday, Sept. 29 at St.
Boniface Catholic Church in Cold Spring. Tomorrow, Seth Bartell's
memorial service will be held. He and Aaron Rollin were shot at their
school last month. There have been two funds set up:

And, there will be a motorcycle ride to remember Seth Saturday,
October 18th. They'll start at 2:00 p.m. at the Rocori High School
Parking lot. For more information on the ride, contact Greg Nagel
612-710-7200 or Matt Olund 952-334-2328.

I got most of this information from kstp.com news, MPR news, and from
a very helpful person at the Cold Spring city offices.

Tuesday, October 14, 2003. This was another "typical" autumnal
day here in Sauk Centre. This time, the sky was blue with a few bits of
cloud-stuff swept across the world's ceiling. If yesterday was chilly,
today is brisk.

Monday, October 13, 2003. (Oops. I made a couple corrections
today, in last Saturday's entry. Two were to fix badly-constructed
sentences, the other was an error in fact. The shooting in Cold Spring
occurred Wednesday, September 24, not on the date which I listed.)

While I'm on the subject of the Cold Spring situation, Seth Bartell's
funeral is scheduled for Thursday, at St. Boniface Catholic Church in
Cold Spring.

On a more local, and happier, note, the weather has turned typically
autumnal: overcast skies, highs around sixty, and enough wind to make
you wish you had a jacket on if you forgot to put one on. The latter
applies to non-teenagers, of course. Quite a few of those folks are
still walking around in short sleeves.

Saturday, October 11, 2003. It rained most of the day. I
understand that we can use it, with the drought we had in late summer.
Yesterday, at the road work site on Sinclair Lewis Avenue, water trucks
were dousing dried dirt to cut down on wind-blown dust.

Holidays are coming up. In addition to the traditional pumpkins by
the walk and on the steps, a few households have Halloween lights up:
strings of orange bulbs, cheerful plastic statues of smiling ghosts,
glowing in the front yard. Christmas decorations are for sale in the
local stores.

Meanwhile, on Sinclair Lewis Avenue, curbs have been poured on the
street near
Jerry's Northstar, and elsewhere. The detour situation hasn't changed:
drivers still have to guess how to get around the work, starting from
Main Street.

I've been concentrating on the Sinclair Lewis Avenue makeover, but
there's work coming along on the county road on the south side of town,
too.

On the north side of town, the Oak Ridge area is growing. There are
brand-new (and expensive) houses going up by the lake, on the
not-quite-complete new road up there. It looks as if they're going to
keep most of the trees, so that should be an attractive area.

We had sad news from Cold Spring yesterday. Seth Bartell, the
surviving high school student, died Friday. He and Aaron Rollins, both
students at Rocori High School, were "allegedly" shot by a fifteen year
old. One of the witnesses was a teacher who, happily, was able to remove
the gun from the killer before anyone else was hurt. The shootings took
place two weeks ago, Wednesday, September 24.

Tuesday, October 7, 2003. What a beautiful day! Warm "Indian
summer" weather, with a clear sky and just enough wind to feel in your
hair.

And, another not-strictly-Sauk-Centre item. Anyone with a
telephone has a special feeling for those telemarketing calls. Late
today we finally heard some sense from a court. Specifically, a Federal
Appeals Court which decided that work on the
Do Not Call List could go ahead.
And, humorist
Dave Barry had a very interesting suggestion about what ordinary
citizens could do to help one of the companies that provides this, ah,
service know how we feel what they do, along with the company's phone
number. (That was in his Sunday, Oct. 5 column.)

Sunday, October 5, 2003. The last week saw more changes
downtown.

Schutz Taekwando
Academy had open house in it's location among the new shops north of Ben
Franklin, and I see that an outfit called Quilt Bubbles expects to open in the
third space in November. Gold 'N More,
in the first of the three new locations, is having a Grand Opening
October 6 through 11.

Friday, October 3, 2003. The little boy and girl statues in
Sinclair Lewis Park's fountain were taken down for the season this week. With
freezing temperatures at night, this is a necessary preparation for
winter.

The new city hall construction is moving along. The roof is up,
partly still sheathed in plywood and partly covered with what appear to
be dark shingles.

Leaves are falling from trees. With the remarkable lack of rain late
this summer, many of the fallen leaves are still partly green. Some of
the more spectacular autumn performers have either already lost their
leaves without having put on much of a show, or are displaying more
brown than brilliance.

The weather warmed up for the weekend: parts of Minnesota touched the
freezing point on Wednesday night this week. Moorhead, International
Falls, and Austin all reported lows of 32 on the night of September 24,
with the rest of the state not too far behind. I haven't heard official
numbers for Sauk Centre (hardly a surprise), but the low was 33 in St.
Cloud and 35 in Alexandria that night. Since Sauk Centre is between
them, I suppose we got down to about 34. It's definitely time to make
sure any outside plumbing is either heated or drained.

Friday, September 26, 2003. Today a musical about Rosemary
Clooney, A Dash of Rosemary! opened
in Sauk Centre. It is "a new musical revue
by Doug Kampsen and Kathy Weese featuring the original NYC cast."
This was quite a big deal for us. One of my daughters saw a performance,
and was impressed. I believe this is the first time she's seen live,
professionally choreographed, dance. More performances are coming, and
The Palmer House Hotel
downtown is having some sort of cast party this evening. In fact, that's
going on while I make this journal entry.

This afternoon I passed
through downtown. As is often the case, traffic was backed up over two
blocks north of the traffic light. At both intersections, drivers had
stopped their vehicles well short of the crossing lanes, making it
possible for someone to make a left turn onto a side street! I've seldom seen this sort of courtesy in larger cities, but it is not
uncommon here: and is another reason I'm very glad to live in this small
town.

This journal usually focuses on Sauk Centre happenings, but
what happened down the road in Cold Spring this week is making enough of
an impact here to warrant a little more attention.

It is still possible that there will be only one death in the Cold
Spring murder. Aaron Rollins, a senior at Rocori High School, died
Wednesday after being airlifted to St Cloud Hospital. Seth Bartell is
alive and in critical condition at the same facility. Both Aaron and
Seth were shot by a fifteen year old male who is a student at the
school.

Stearns County law enforcement has turned prosecution of the case
over to the attorney general's office. One reason is to avoid the
appearance of conflict of interest. The 'alleged. killer is the son of a
Stearns County sheriff's deputy.

Meanwhile, back in the hospital, Seth isn't doing too well. As of
Friday afternoon, he still had a life-threatening injury to his brain
that happened when a bullet went through the left side of his brain and
stayed in the back of his head. Aside from what the bullet did, there's
a lot of swelling inside. Seth got shot in the chest, too, but that
wound isn't as serious. It will probably be a long time before anyone
knows exactly how bad it is for him.

Memorial services for Aaron Rollins will be held at 11:30 am Monday
at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Cold Spring. His body will be buried
in the parish cemetery. Friends may call after 4 Sunday afternoon and
between 9 and 11 Monday morning at St. Boniface's.

There is an Aaron Rollins Memorial fund. Contributions can be sent
to:

State Bank of Cold Spring
Box 415
Cold Spring MN 56320

First National Bank of Cold Spring
Box 416
Cold Spring MN 56320

Wenner Funeral Home
600 Red River Avenue South
Cold Spring MN 56320

A little about Cold Spring and "Rocori:" Rocori is what Rockville,
Cold Spring, and Richmond call themselves when they do something
cooperatively. They made a new name from the first two letters of the
existing town names. These "combined communities" have a website at
http://www.rocori.com/. Cold Spring's website is
http://www.coldspring.govoffice.com/.

I got most of my facts from kstp.com news and Minnesota Public Radio
news.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003. Sadly, "small town America"
isn't immune to whatever ails today's culture. This morning, about an
hour down the Interstate, at the Ricori high school in Cold Spring, a
student shot two other students. One is dead, the other very seriously
wounded. The folks around Cold Spring will be feeling this the most,
those closest to the victims, but we're all affected. I won't do the
usual "how could this happen in such an idyllic setting" stuff. All the
people around here are human beings, and that means trouble: sooner, or
later.

I was pleased to see that, once the emergency started, the folks at
the school were prepared. Teachers locked down their rooms, and later
evacuated the building. Helicopters airlifted the casualties to St.
Cloud Hospital.

KSTP news says that the Minnesota Department of Education doesn't
have a record of any other "fatal shooting" in a school, except for
fourteen year old kid who shot himself in 1993 with a rifle he had
brought to the Middle River school.

This was a sad day, and our neighbors have suffered a terrible loss.

Monday, September 22, 2003. A crane was lifting roof trusses
onto the new city hall's roof this morning.

Sinclair Lewis Avenue west of main looks a little more like a street
again. Last week's trenches have been filled in, and most of the area is
a mud flat now. Details of last week's excitement are in the paper now.
From what I read there, quite a few folks didn't take the matter of a
gas explosion seriously: incredible, considering what happened in St.
Cloud a few years ago. The break happened somewhat after 5:00. The paper
mentioned ladies from a nearby restaurant carrying their food out with
them, folks down by the American Legion (about a block away) coming out
to watch, and a crowd gathering to see what was going on. This, while
natural gas was venting from a broken line.

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue traffic situation has a new wrinkle. There
is now a new stop sign at on 2nd Street, where it meets Willow, and the
detour sign has been put on the same pole.

At the south end of downtown, a plumbing company truck was parked
outside the old downtown Cenex station. I understand that refitting that
building as a restaurant is still going on, if slowly.

Friday, September 19, 2003. The concrete-block walls of the
new city hall now have plywood forms attached, giving the building a
more stylish shape. We're starting to have a better idea of what that
place will look like. It will take a little getting used to, going a
block west of Main to reach City Hall, instead of a block east.

Meanwhile, deep trenches have been dug in Sinclair Lewis Avenue, west
of Main Street. I heard that a gas line was compromised late Wednesday
or early Thursday, encouraging the folks in charge to shut off power. I
understand the need: natural gas explosions can be very messy.

The good news is that we still have as many buildings downtown as we
did at the beginning of the week. The bad news is that those digital
cash registers were completely offline for a while. At least one
business spent quite a bit of Thursday re-programming theirs.

This week, I finally noticed that Gold 'N More has moved into
its new place on Main Street, just north of the Ben Franklin. They've
been there since about Labor Day.

In fact, it is the first of what may be three businesses to move into
what used to be the north half of the Ben Franklin store. Gold 'N More
has their store set up, but the other three places are still part of a
construction zone. So is an enclosed pedestrian route from Main Street
to the parking lots. That pedestrian access should be handy, when the
new city hall opens

Monday, September 15, 2003. The new city hall's concrete-block
walls rose above ground level last week. Construction, and road work,
has blocked traffic on the block west of the post office.

There are huge "loose gravel" signs up on Main, near Sinclair Lewis
Avenue. Sure enough, there is a thin coating of sand with bits of gravel
in the intersection, particularly the west side where the pavement ends.
As of this evening, there are still no visible "detour" signs up on
Main: at least, none I could spot while driving by. Good news, though:
the "detour" sign at the end of 2nd Street's run west from Main is still
up, showing people smart or lucky enough to take that route where they
turn to avoid hitting someone's yard.

Thursday, September 11, 2003. Two years ago today, the NYC
World Trade Center was destroyed when terrorists used two airliners as
flying bombs. The Pentagon was attacked by a third. On a fourth
airliner, the last words heard on a passenger's phone message were
"let's roll." Minutes later, that airliner was a field of wreckage in
Pennsylvania. There's a possibility that the terrorists on that one were
planning to hit the White House.

Today, it was another beautiful day in New York City. Thousands of
names were read, each belonging to a victim of the attack. At the
Pentagon, a stained glass window has been installed in the chapel: one
that's very special to survivors.

Here in Sauk Centre, I didn't notice any special observance. But
then, it was raining almost all day and I have a job that keeps me busy
this time of year.

Sauk Centre seems far away from New York City and Washington DC, but
we're also affected. There have been National Guard people who weren't
on the job here because they were keeping fanatic mass-murderers from
killing more innocent people. I've had to change the way I mail some
items, because the trusting society I had been used to doesn't exist any
more. No complaints, here: there is a very real threat out there, and
the needed adjustments have been minor.

Back to small town stuff: The rain this week turned Sinclair Lewis
Avenue into a titanic collection of mud puddles. I don't envy the guys
that have to work in that. On the up side, there are some more detour
signs up, and even a set of signs on the west side of town letting
people know how to get to the business district.

September 10, 2003. Last Friday, Governor Pawlenty asked that
about 49 counties in Minnesota be declared federal agricultural disaster
areas. As the governor said, "A month ago we were looking at a good crop
year and now we're looking at more than a billion dollars in economic
loss." Lack of rain over the last several weeks has hurt crops badly.

So, today it rains. Not that it will help the crops: they're toast.
But at least it settles the dust.

South of us, a dozen or so towns cut school off early on Monday. It
was so hot that the energy-saver plan they are on was shutting down the
air conditioners. In a sealed building full of people, with temperatures
in the nineties, that isn't the best situation. One of the places close
to us that had to do this was the Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa school system.

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue road work saga continues. Over the last few
days, huge piles of dirt got piled on the northbound lanes of Main
Street, then put back on Sinclair Lewis. There's a lot getting
installed, under the street.

It says in the local paper that Sinclair Lewis Avenue's decor is
going to go retro. Sauk Centre Public Utilities will be installing
old-fashioned acorn-style globe lights on the avenue: single globes in
the residential area, double globes downtown.

Finally, up on the north side, Sauk Centre is going to become a
three-stoplight town. A light has been okayed for Main and Lakeshore
Drive, at the northeast corner of the golf course. It's a good idea,
since a new street has been cut through the north side of the old "home
school" grounds to the highway. With the Lakeridge development there,
they're expecting more traffic. There are already a few homes under
construction on the new road.

September 4, 2003. I should have looked more closely at those
green and gold fields. They looked nice, but some of that green wasn't
as green as it should be, and the gold was dry before its time. Governor
Pawlenty is expected to make some kind of an announcement tomorrow about
the state of crops in Minnesota and what can be done about it. Not the
crops, apparently, but rather what can be done about the economic
impact. We're about $1,100,000,000 short this harvest, state-wide.
That's right: 11 with eight zeroes to the right. The 1.1 billion dollar
figure came from John Monson in the U.S. Agriculture Department.

On the other hand, today was a picture-postcard day: exactly the
right temperature and humidity, no breeze to speak of and a sky as clear
as glass. I spent most of it inside, closeted with a computer and
greenbar printouts.

August 29, 2003.Labor Day weekend
is starting, and my front yard looks a little like autumn. The recent
hot weather encouraged some of the trees and bushes to start shedding
leaves early. Driving to Osakis, Alexandria, and points beyond during
these last few weeks has been pleasant. With some fields ripe, some
harvested, and some still green, the landscapes in many places are a
patchwork of green and gold.

August 23, 2003. About that tax proposal connected with the
local hospital we voted on, back on August 5: It passed by an
overwhelming margin. It will be interesting, seeing how the upgrades to
St. Mike's go. ("St. Michael's Hospital and Nursing Home," of course, by
the lake, up on the north side.)

August 22, 2003. Finally, some relatively dry and cool air!

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue saga continues. Jerry's Northstar has
gravel on that back road leading in from the corner of 4th and Walnut,
and a neatly-lettered sign to supplement the hand-crafted
spray-paint-on-cardboard originals. There's even a sort of path over the
depression that was Sinclair Lewis Avenue leading in from the north. The
latter is passable, if your vehicle isn't too low-slung.

There are a few more "Detour" signs up, although I've got to think
that navigating around that area could be challenging to anyone not
familiar with the town. Someone told me of a out of town woman, who had
gotten lost trying to scout out an alternative path. She wasn't at all
happy about the situation, or the fact that she hadn't seen a single
directing sign.

August 20, 2003. "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." The
highs were only in the mid-to-upper-nineties earlier this week. It was
the humidity that had me melting. Actually, anything over about seventy
is warm for me: and our overnight lows have been in the low seventies.
My hat is off to everyone who works outside.

Sinclair Lewis Avenue is still torn up, and will be for some time. In
addition to replacing the pavement, the road is being widened. One of
the residents, on the south side of the road, is not at all happy about
losing a favorite tree and had a sign out, declaring the fact.

August 15, 2003. I've seen my first "Detour" sign around the
Sinclair Lewis Avenue project now. It's at the west end of 2nd Street's
westward run from Main, where you need to jog left, when going west.

On the online side of life here in Sauk Centre, the MSBlaster /
Lovesan worm has hit locally. A relative's computer had to be cured by
one of his sons, but as far as I can tell we didn't lose service. The
local ISP has been doing a good job, maintaining our connections.

August 10, 2003. Sinclair Lewis Avenue is pretty obviously out
of use by now. Those "Road Closed" signs and barriers seem almost
redundant, considering the half-foot drop and rough terrain beyond the
edge of the construction zone. I've been told that it is a county
project that just happens to be inside Sauk Centre city limits.

The rest of today's entry is what I've seen, catching up with the
regional news.

There's bad news, and just a little good news, about ten miles up the
road in Osakis. From what I've gathered in the news, a woman moved there
from San Francisco. On July 29, she called 911. She told investigators
that she shoved her 18-month-old son under the water in Lake Osakis twice, then
changed her mind and called 911. I'm glad she changed her mind, but we
do frown on that sort of thing around here. She's been charged with
attempted second-degree murder, third-degree assault and child
endangerment. The good news? The last I heard, the boy is in an
Alexandria, Minnesota, hospital and in "satisfactory condition."

The war in Iraq got much closer to home. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Brian
Hellermann, 35, the second soldier from Minnesota to die there, was
killed by enemy fire Wednesday. His wife and children (9 and 14) are
living in Fort Bragg. Memorial services will be in Fort Bragg, the
funeral in Salisbury, North Carolina, where his wife is from. There will
be another memorial service at the St. Rose of Lima church in St. Rosa,
down the road from here. The family here is working through the Freeport
bank to set up a memorial fund to improve playgrounds in St. Rosa. A
close family friend was quoted in the St. Cloud times as saying, "Brian
told his mom that the reason he had to do this was not just to free
adults, but to free the kids over there, ... And so his kids and
everybody else's kids won't have to fight over there."

Finally, John Vakulskas, special envoy to carnivals from the Vatican,
was at Sauk Rapids recently, to bless the midway rides at the Benton
County Fair. Father John, carnival priest and minister to the carnival
workers, said that the common view of carnival workers wasn't accurate.
He was quoted on KNSI as saying, "These are all God's children and we
serve their spiritual needs."

August 5, 2003. The Saga of Sinclair Lewis Avenue continues.

The Sinclair Lewis Avenue roadwork is well under way now. As of
today, finding a way around the blocked street is a little exciting.

Coming in from the west, It isn't obvious until you're close to Lake
Wobegon Trail that not only is there no marked detour, but there are no
cross streets.

At the "Road Closed" sign, you have two choices: turn around in the
street and go back a quarter mile to Fairy Lake Road, take that road to
2nd Street, and go east from there; or climb the curb and drive across
the warehouse-and-light-industrial lots to 2nd Street. Then carefully
drive over the 2nd Street curb and head east. I saw two pickup drivers
take the second option yesterday. I don't blame them: I've known bosses
that I'd hate to try explaining that half-mile round trip (and delay)
to.

Coming from the east, it's pretty obvious. No detour marked, but
anyone who's lived in Sauk Centre, and is familiar with the street
layout, knows that streets don't go all the way over to Fairy Lake Road,
or the highway, from Main until a long way south of downtown. The
shortest way around the road construction is 2nd Street.

Just one problem today: a block west of Main, you run into two
residential construction projects, across the street from each other.
There should be a crane at one tomorrow, just to make things more
interesting. It would be easier to go two blocks south from the "Road
Closed" sign and drive by Sinclair Lewis Park. Too bad there aren't any
cross streets from 2nd to Park Drive for several blocks west of Main.

Come to think of it, what happens to people who aren't familiar with
the street layout of Sauk Centre?

At least the work seems to be going quickly.

I was downtown this noon, to vote on a tax proposal connected with
the local hospital. Happily, the voting place at the armory was
accessible.

August 4, 2003. Roadwork has started on Sinclair Lewis Avenue,
between downtown and Lake Wobegon Trail. The eastbound lane is being
chewed up first. Jerry's North Star station has a back road leading in,
from 4th and Walnut Street. That road is more of a grass track right
now, but there are two signs up, marking the entrance: look for large
pieces of cardboard, a couple feet on a side.

On the other side of town, restoration and repair work resumed on Our Lady of the Angels
church: the north and west sides of the bell tower, this time.

August 2, 2003. This should be a lively night downtown.
They're having a street dance. A block of Sinclair Lewis Avenue just
west of Main is blocked off with snow fence. A flatbed trailer is
athwart the street at the east end. At 5:00 this afternoon, there was
already some sound equipment on the flatbed.

On the block of Main Street just south of Sinclair Lewis,
construction/remodeling is still going on in the north half of the Ben
Franklin Store. The south half has been set up for business for a while
now. They're putting a corridor through the north half, from the parking
lot to Main. Good idea, since there's going to be much more activity on
the west side of downtown after city hall moves: and access from parking
to the front doors of shops has been a problem for years.

I hear that Sinclair Lewis Avenue will be closed from downtown to
well beyond Jerry's Northstar. the street will be torn up for roadwork.
This season, with the fields going amber and winter not too far away,
isn't the time I would have chosen to block the major east-west corridor
and block off at least one business. Something like this happened in
recent years in a town a little west of here. A minor highway was
blocked for months. What a surprise: a number of businesses which were
on the highway folded in the months during which the only way to reach
them was with an ATV.

Jerry's Northstar has a back access that hasn't been used in years.
They're going to open that and set up signs for the roadwork's duration.

July 31, 2003. That work on the old VFW building on west Sinclair Lewis Avenue
has a sign on it now. "Jimmy's Pizza" is coming soon, it says.

July 24, 2003. I finally got around to reading the paper, and
saw some very sad news. Almost a week ago, early Saturday morning, about
half past midnight, there was a fatal car accident at the west side I94
exit. According to the paper, the co-owner of Centre Lumber, Dennis
Hoeschen (48), was coming back from his son's go-cart race in
Alexandria: a regular event for him. That night, someone from Burtrum
was driving up the exit, going the wrong way. It took 20 minutes to sort
the drivers out from the vehicles. Sauk Centre Ambulance took John
Wilfred Siefert (53), the other driver, to Sauk Centre's St. Michael
Hospital. He died there. A LifeLink helicopter airlifted Mr. Hoeschen to
St. Cloud, where he died. Centre Lumber was closed all day Tuesday this
week, in Dennis "Whitey" Hoeschen's honor.

On a happier note, there are so many cars, trucks, and RVs parked on
the street where I live that sometimes I can't see the street. That
isn't good news in itself, but is a symptom of a happy occasion: the
Stearns County Fair. I live
pretty close to the fairgrounds, and get to see the people looking for
an open spot, then later see them walking south from wherever they found
one. There's parking on the grounds themselves, and across the street in
at least two directions, but that costs money.

July 23, 2003. The Stearns County Fair opened today. It looks
like they'll have good weather for at least the first two days. There is
a new outfit providing the midway rides, so the place looks rather
different from the road. The Sauk Centre Herald Bandstand is up, ready
to go. It was being built during the last few weeks. The thing is
essentially one end of a pole barn, painted bright red, with the floor raised
about chest-high.

Out on west Sinclair Lewis Avenue, there's work in progress at the
old VFW building. It looks like they're putting on more insulation.

July 19, 2003. This has been a busy day here in Sauk Centre.
The circus came to town. Not the Jose Cole Circus: They come sometime
around Easter each year.

This was the Culpepper & Merriweather Circus, complete with big top.
Two of my kids and I watched them put it up at the fairgrounds this
morning. The human crew got help from Betty, one of the two elephants.

We were back at 2:00 for the first show. Great fun!

Then, this evening, the Sinclair Lewis Days parade went by our house.
Neighbors of ours, who had asked if they could put up chairs on our
yard, were there. So were a dozen or so other people, many of whom I
didn't recognize. Most yards around here were like that. Lawn chairs and
blankets had been collecting on the grass around here since morning. It
took about fifty five minutes for the procession to pass. Local
businesses, not-so-local businesses, the Knights of Columbus, an
unidentified rock band on a flatbed trailer, a dozen or so horses, and
about a hundred other units marched, or rolled, by. Folks came from at
least as far away as St. Cloud to be in the parade.

A few doors south of there, the Ben Franklin store is in the south
half of its storefront. The north half is going through remodeling. The
Snyder Drug that used to be in the south half is long gone. We're still a
two-drugstore town, though: there's a pharmacy in the Coborn's grocery
store, as well as Winter's downtown.

July 14, 2003. Things are happening at the Stearns County Fair
grounds. Sometime last week, the Sauk Centre Herald band shell was
finished. It's at the south end of the midway, facing east toward the
Eagles. food concession and the Knights of Columbus Bingo booth. Today,
as I was getting home (later than I like), I saw some carnival equipment
heading north through downtown. Out at the fairgrounds, there's part of
a ride: still on its trailer, parked at the north end of the midway.

July 12, 2003. Sinclair Lewis Days is coming next weekend, and
then the Stearns County Fair, starting on the 23rd. I saw a sign up at
the southwest corner of the fairgrounds that read:

July 8, 2003. These last two days it would have been possible
to count mosquitoes in terms of pests per cubic foot. That big
"Fireworks" tent on the south side (see June 19) is still up, but the
tables inside have been empty since the 4th.

I've heard that all the rain we've had is helping the mosquitoes keep
their numbers up. It certainly has been keeping the river up. Below the
dam, at the Conservation Club Park, water rose over the lowest foot or
so of grass. That's horizontal foot, not vertical.

July 1, 2003. We can look forward to a fireworks display down
at the I-94 Speedway on the Fourth.

Yesterday, the new Chinese restaurant opened. The announcement,
"GRAND OPEN 7 DAYS 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM" was displayed not only on a
white board outside, but in the window as well. They've got an inviting
buffet inside, and a menu that has me looking for an excuse to see what
their food is like.

And, there's a wooden awning going up on the front of Sportsman's.
Bar, on Sinclair Lewis Avenue.

June 28, 2003. Next Friday is the Fourth of July, and
fireworks are for sale in the stores again this year. Sparklers, what I used to call
snakes, and similarly safe ones, anyway. "If it whiz's or bangs... It is
illegal" Deputy Fire Marshall Dan Bernardy was quoted as saying
on KSTP's site this week. I've heard some of those unmistakable signs of
bottle rockets and similar contraband in town, but not very often.

Meanwhile, downtown, the "coming soon" sign is missing from the
window of the new Chinese restaurant, and the door was open this
morning. I understand that a family from the Morris area is opening this
as a sort of branch of their restaurant there. I'm looking forward to
this.

June 19, 2003. Sometime this week, a large tent went up in the
parking lot of the defunct Economart, just east of the McDonald's.
There's a big "Fireworks" sign outside, along with a Black Cat poster.
Fireworks have been on the shelves in stores for a week or so. I don't
remember this last year, and for a very long time the Minnesota State
government has been protecting us from sparklers and firecrackers. Being
something of a sentimentalist, I'm rather glad to see these items
available again: The sanitized Fourth of July that occupied much of my
life doesn't match the lively times of my childhood. (You have to be "of
age" to buy these things now, of course.)

June 17, 2003. More changes downtown: Newspaper came off the
door's glass panel and the blinds went up at the Chinese Restaurant.
It's still 'opening soon,. but now there are booths in place, and work
was in progress this afternoon. Two doors south of that soon-to-open
business, a new sign has been painted in the window of where B & K
Hobbies was: Harbor Light Candles and Gifts. That small storefront was a
jewelry store when I moved into town, about seventeen years ago.

June 14, 2003. Yesterday, someone told me that the weather
forecast said temperatures would be high for the next few days: a good
thing, since this would warm up the water so the kids could go
swimming.

It was in a warm summer evening today when the missionary image of
Our Lady of Guadalupe went from Our Lady of the Angels Church to St.
Paul's in a procession. About a dozen people were involved. This is the
first procession involving either of these churches that I can remember
in the seventeen years I've lived here.

June 11, 2003. The south side of the Ben Franklin store
downtown has display racks up, and some merchandise. The place looks
more like a store and less like a construction site now. Across the
street east and about a half block south, on the corner of fourth and
Main, there's been work going on, too: window work at the old Cenex
location. Today, sheets of particle board filled the window frames on either
side of the door.

June 7, 2003. Stearns County had a household hazardous waste
pickup point in the parking lot of the Sinclair Lewis interpretive
center today. Smart idea, making it possible to safely and legally get
rid of paint, 'bug bombs. and the like!

Despite work earlier this week with the weed harvester earlier this
week, there are still thick mats of water plants on Sauk Lake. It's a
little odd, seeing tracks of open water in the lake where boats go by.
There's an especially well-defined one leading north from the public
access landing near the south end of the lake.

June 3, 2003. The Central Minnesota Federal Credit Union
branch on south Main opened this week. That Chinese restaurant continues
to be "opening soon." And today I saw Sauk River Watershed District's
weed harvester out on Sauk Lake, picking up masses of those water plants
that boats have been cutting channels through at the south end of the
lake.

Yesterday evening, on my way to see if the light was right for a
picture or two by the golf course, I was deflected by a closed road:
part of that work I mentioned on May 28. This happy event led me past a
driveway where two youngsters had an upturned blue plastic tub with
something very colorful on what was not its top. When I passed the spot
again, they were struggling with a white board which was nearly as long
as the biggest one was tall. The younger motioned me over. Sensing a
grand business opening, I parked about twenty feet beyond them.

The youngsters were selling painted rocks. If memory serves, the
prices started at ten cents and went up to seventy five cents. I chose
the only non-painted rock in the lot: a fifty cent piece. One of them
explained that, although not painted, it was "cool," and threw in one of
the smallest painted rocks.

My hat is off to them: this is a fine variation on the traditional
lemonade stand!

May 28, 2003. The Treonne's clothing store downtown has "Going
Out of Business" signs in the windows. Next door, renovation is still
going on in the south half of the Ben Franklin store.

Earlier this year, the VFW started sharing facilities with the
American Legion. That move freed up some commercial space on west
Sinclair Lewis Avenue.

Road work is picking up again on the north side, near the Sauk Lake
shoreline where that Minnesota State facility used to be. A sign says
they're selling lakefront lots there.

May 20, 2003. Construction on south Main Street, where the
Cenex moved to when they left downtown, seems to be almost complete.
Judging by the banner they've got spread over part of building, pretty
soon we'll have a branch of the
Central Minnesota Federal Credit Union here.

May 14, 2003. The Chinese restaurant is still "opening soon,"
according to a sign in the front window. The door's window is blocked
with sheets of newspaper, so I suppose that there's a bit of work still
going on inside.

There's an antique store with a difference going in on the other side
of the street from the new restaurant, at the southeast corner of
Sinclair Lewis and Main. I saw a painter putting lettering up on the
window as I went home from work yesterday. Apparently this place will
have a coffee bar and half-price books. Interesting combination.

May 12, 2003. There's a new sign up on The Original Main
Street now: "Grand Buffet Chinese Restaurant 351-1688." The new
restaurant is where "all star PIZZA" used to be, about half a block
south of Sinclair Lewis Avenue, on the west side.

May 8, 2003. Just a quick correction and addition to
yesterday's entry. The fiber cable cut happened near Rockford Road in
Plymouth: not at Rockford, Minnesota, as we heard at first. The cut
happened about three in the afternoon. A repair crew was there at about
4:10, and service was restored about 5:38.

May 7, 2003. Brendan's Island was unavailable to most of the
Web this afternoon. A fiber cable near Rochester, Minnesota, was
accidentally cut about 3:00 this afternoon. The cable handled servers in
quite a bit of Minnesota. Folks were fixing it by the time I checked
with the local ISP. When I logged on this evening, service seemed to be
back to normal. Fast work.

This entry is going to be longer than usual. There's been quite a bit
happening. I saw in the paper that there has been quite a bit of trouble
here and there in Sauk Centre recently. There's some good news, too: I
saved that for last.

A young woman moved into town recently with her boyfriend and
eighteen month old baby. April 27, the boyfriend ran away and took her
baby with him. The baby's been recovered, safe, and he's been charged
with "depriving another of custodial rights."

The same day there was an altercation at a motel, when some guests
tried to sleep three people for the price of two. Some fifteen-year-old
did about $1,700 worth of tire-slashing at an apartment parking lot.
He's been caught.

Before April 30, the school had two Colorado blue spruce trees. They
had been donated, and by now were about fifteen feet tall. Sometime
between late Wednesday, April 30, and early Thursday they were cut down.
There's a $200 award out for whoever did this.

This isn't exactly the dreamy "small town America" some people think
of: but I still would rather live here. Good neighbors, family, and a
pleasant environment make this a very good place to live.

Downtown, the Ben Franklin store is going through quite a
metamorphosis. It occupies two storefronts on the west side of "The
Original Main Street." The south half is empty and seems be be getting
remodeled. The north half is open for business while this is going on.

Just west of downtown, buildings have been removed and ground is
being prepared for the new city hall.

Sauk Centre's Boy Scout Troop 25 will be planting trees, again, on
Lake Wobegon Trail. This is the third spring they've been at it. So far
they've planted fifty. They and their parents been watering the trees
weekly. Besides making the trail nicer to look at and providing a
windbreak, the trees make a small habitat for wildlife.

May 1, 2003. It's been quite a week. Late Monday, about 20
miles north of here, three bodies were found. Holly Chromey (49) and her
children, Katie (18) and Jerrod Zapzalka (16) had been killed in their
home in downtown Long Prairie. Wednesday afternoon, police arrested two
alleged suspects (as Fearless Fosdick would have said) in northeast
Minneapolis.

Apparently, a couple of drug users are responsible for the three Long
Prairie murders, and for killing an old man and his daughter (William
Schwartz (88) and Claudia Schwartz (50)) in northeast Minneapolis on
April 17. The Minneapolis police chief said that robbery seemed to be
the motive in both cases.

Sad.

April 30, 2003. Unhappily, on Monday (4/28/2003) a mother and
her two children were found dead in their house in Long Prairie. That's
only about 20 miles north of here, straight up Highway 71. The police
there are treating it as a triple homicide. Folks in Long Prairie are
extra-cautious now, since there's no clear indication as to who killed
them, or why.

April 19, 2003. "Snow" is off the ground again, except in a
few sheltered spots. The white ground cover is actually those tiny ice
pellets that came down earlier this week. The last few days have
showcased another feature of springtime in Minnesota: green grass poking
up through snow. Or, in this case, millions of tiny ice pellets.

The downtown traffic lights got upgraded last week. Until a week
before yesterday, they would flash red on Sinclair Lewis Avenue
(east-west), amber on The Original Main Street from 11 at night to 6 in
the morning. Now, they'll be going through their cycle 24 hours a day.

Besides that, there are new rules for the pedestrian crossing at the
downtown lights. Before, the walk/don't walk signals cycled
automatically. Now, pedestrians push a button to start the walk/don't
walk sequence. Pushing the button doesn't speed up the lights. cycle: it
just lets the system know that someone is there, hoping to cross the
street. The
Sauk Centre Herald published a story on the new lights, detailing
how to interpret the flashing hand and walking-person icon. The paper
mentioned that the current downtown stop lights have been working there
since October of 1981. The downtown stoplights were upgraded during the
2001 bridge project, to allow protected left turns (Factoid
Man: Changes in Sauk Centre, 2001).

The golf course north of town (GreyStone Golf Club) has been under
new management for some time, and has a
new Web site. There is now a
link under "Places to
Recreate" on the Some Web Sites From
This Area page.

April 16, 2003. Today, sleet and freezing rain. Temperatures
staying around the freezing point. Last night we had lightning and wind
blasting rain and sleet at us from the east. Then, somewhat after
midnight, the power went out for most of Sauk Centre. Our six year old
didn't like that, and I wasn't too thrilled myself.

As I said yesterday, this sort of climatic roller coaster is about
what we expect during spring.

April 15, 2003. Yesterday, the thermometer outside our north
window registered 87 degrees in the early evening. Earlier in the day, I
had noticed that the ice was finally gone from Sauk Lake.

Today, temperatures rose to the mid-sixties and stayed there. The
forecast includes a severe thunderstorm watch tonight and a "wintry mix"
tomorrow. That's a polite way of describing snow, rain, and freezing
rain, and assorted other unpleasantnesses, all hovering around the
freezing point.

That's about par for late spring in Minnesota.

Fleet Supply, out on the west side, roughly doubled its floor area
earlier this year. They're just about finished reorganizing and moving
everything into the new space.

April 11, 2003. I finally read this week's paper. It seems
that Sauk Centre now has a buyer for our existing city hall. Someone has
a plan for converting it to housing. I hope that they keep the interior
stair as it is. That old 1951 building has a certain amount of period
charm to it.

April 10, 2003. It was 72 degrees, Fahrenheit, as I went home
from work today, and there's still ice on the lake. We have clear water
all the way across in many spots, and ice only covers half the width of
the lake in others. Sauk Lake is one of those long, narrow lakes, more
of a submerged river channel than a lake. This morning, I saw ducks
swimming in an open patch, and gulls perched on the ice.

April 9, 2003. I drove through downtown this evening, and
noticed that the curtains were drawn at the pizza place ("all star
PIZZA") on Main Street.
There's a sign in the window, reading "Chinese Restaurant Coming Soon."
Meanwhile, a block west, a small apartment building has long since been
torn down to make way for the new city hall. I expect we'll see more
work being done around there this summer.

April 5, 2003. Just enough snow was on the ground this morning
to make it white. Most disappeared as soon as the sun hit it, leaving
the shadows snow-covered.

And, let's not forget that we set clocks forward tonight. We get to
experience jet lag without traveling!

April 4, 2003. Light snow this morning came down on top of
yesterday's ice. Some of the ice has melted or been worn off, which
helps traction a bit.

April 3, 2003. Pretty much everything outside that was facing
up or east got covered with a film of ice today. A strong east wind,
rain or some other precipitation coming down, and freezing temperatures
are what did the trick. The ice wasn't thick, somewhere around a thirty
second or sixteenth of an inch, but it made sidewalks, streets, and even
lawns slick. The windows of my vehicle had a lovely coating, like
textured glass, when I left work yesterday.

March 31, 2003. The high was in the sixties today, and that
crust of ice is still on Sauk Lake.

March 28, 2003. Driving by Sauk Lake today, I noticed that
there is still a crust of ice on most of the lake. The first foot or so
near shore is clear, and there are a few open patches. It isn't very
thick, though: about enough to support the two Canadian geese I saw near
one of the open spots.

March 27, 2003. The Jose Cole Circus put on a performance at
the Sauk Centre Civic Arena tonight. They come every year, sometime
around Easter. It's a pretty major community event: an hour and a half
of aerialists, animal acts, clowns, and Anna-Louise, the dancing
elephant.

March 24, 2003. I was out of town with two of the kids on a
special trip, so I missed the excitement. On Saturday night (March 22),
at about 8:30, my wife heard and felt a very loud bang. She thought
something might have hit the house. A quick check showed no damage, so
she called her mother. She had heard the bang, too. While this was going
on, most of the emergency vehicles in town screamed by our house.

Today (Monday), at work, I learned that most of Sauk Centre probably
heard it, at least on the south side. Apparently, someone east of town,
near the old dump, got a fire permit. He put brush in a pit and, wanting
it to burn fast, added quite a bit of gasoline. Gasoline fumes being
what they are, he got more of an explosion instead of a fire. Happily,
no one seems to have been hurt.

March 20, 2003. The rains of the last few days melted the last
snow, at least except for very sheltered spots and the top of Sauk Lake.
It is now Springtime in Minnesota: which means mud underfoot and a
sweeper roaring up and down the streets, brushing away winter's sand and
debris.

March 5, 2003. I read that the temperature up in International
Falls set a record low last night: 30 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit.
The northwest Minnesota town of Tower hit 39 below. Alexandria and St.
Cloud, near Sauk Centre on I-94, went down to 15 below. This morning,
outside our window here, it was a comparatively balmy 12 below. Now, that's winter!

March 3, 2003. About an inch of snow came down today, on top
of some that fell on the weekend. Fresh snow on packed snow and ice
means low (or no) traction. Sadly, a fatal accident happened on I-94 near
Clearwater today: about an hour back toward the Metro area from here.
Both westbound lanes were closed for some two and a half hours.

March 2, 2003. A few years ago, I started hearing Spanish
spoken when I went out for groceries. I see that for some time now,
Coborn's has had about 10 feet of shelving devoted to products such as
tamarindo, ajonjoli, and abuelita. What really caught my eye were the
devotional candles there: including one featuring St. Jude Tadeo (St.
Jude Thaddeus, I usually call him). I bought the candle, but not the
food: with my roots (tubers?) in Norway and Ireland, I'm more a lefse
and stew guy.

February 22, 2003. I noticed some signs that were new to me
today.

There are two brown and cream signs flanking the road into the old
Minnesota Correctional Facility. The place is now called "oak ridge."
That's no typo: the letters are obviously all lower case.

Jerry's Northstar, on west Sinclair Lewis Avenue, has a "for sale by
owner" sign in the front window.

It's been a warm day: at least 17 above zero (Fahrenheit, of course).
Teens and young adults were in shirtsleeves outside Coborn's when I
picked up something there this afternoon.

February 11, 2003. It was a bit warmer this morning, but at
noon I heard that areas north of us were getting ground-blizzard
conditions. By evening there was a "winter weather advisory:" winds from
the west-northwest of 15 to 25 miles an hour and an overnight wind chill
of around minus 20. The actual temperature should only be about minus 5.
After getting home from work, I decided to stay inside.

Going through last week's newspaper, I saw more discussion about the
new city hall, starting on the front page. We're told we need a new one,
which I can believe. The existing building is charming, in my opinion,
but dates from the 1950's, when energy was cheap and wheelchair ramps
unheard of in public architecture. The price tag of the new one may be
around $2.5 million: which I figure works out to about $625 a head for
us. That's a noticeable amount of money for this household. I've seen
pictures of the proposed building: It could be a bright spot downtown.

Another item on the front page wasn't exactly good news, but
illustrates one reason I like living here. Back on January 28, two
ladies from Eden Valley were crossing Main Street, downtown. The were on
a marked crosswalk, and so had the right of way. A small truck with a
"juvenile" behind the wheel came along, clipped one and threw the other
onto the hood. The lady on the hood has a broken leg.

I wish the incident hadn't happened, but I like living where a
traffic accident like this is front-page news.

February 10, 2003. It was 13 below zero (Fahrenheit) this
morning: even I think this is cold. Last week's snow is still with us,
and probably more to come.

February 3, 2003. First, I stand corrected. There was enough
snow yesterday to make a snowman. My wife noticed a small snowman on top
of one of the pillars at the entrance to Stearns County Fairgrounds.

Second, about a half foot of snow came down overnight. Schools in
Sauk Centre were two hours late today. There was quite a bit of wind,
which would make driving in the country a little awkward.

February 2, 2003. We've had snow, off and on, during the week,
and by now it finally looks like winter outside. Since it's also been
warm, the snow has been nearly ideal for packing: not enough for a
serious snowman, but fine for other purposes. Yesterday, my young son
and a friend of his plastered the west wall of our shed with snowballs.

February 1, 2003. Generally, this page of Brendan's Island is
devoted to what happens in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Today will be an
exception.

At about 8:00 this morning, Central time, radio contact with the
space shuttle Columbia was lost. Columbia was about 200,000 feet over
north central Texas at the time. Debris has been found, and it is
obvious now that there can be no survivors.

The crew of the Columbia:

Shuttle commander, Colonel Rick Husband

Shuttle pilot, Commander William McCool

Dr. Kalpana Chawla (the first Indian-born woman in space)

Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson

Captain David Brown

Commander Laurel Clark

Israeli A. F. Colonel Ilan Ramon (the first Israeli astronaut)

The President of the United States concluded his remarks on the loss
of the Columbia with these words:

"In the skies today we saw
destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort
and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'Lift your eyes and look
to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry
hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power
and mighty strength, not one of them is missing..

The same Creator who names
the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The
crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can
pray that all are safely home.

May God bless the grieving
families, and may God continue to bless America."

January 26, 2003. The temperature outside when I looked this
Sunday morning was about 8 below zero (Fahrenheit). By noon, it was up
to zero, and I was out in the back yard, grilling lunch. One of my
daughters ran the food in, before it froze. I've noticed that not many
other folks here grill year-round.

I've got a display of current time and temperature for Sauk Centre
(plus San Francisco and Chicago) near the bottom of one of the
Factoid Man pages.

January 24, 2003. It is quite warm this morning: 6 above zero.
Happily, there was a light snow coming down. By evening, there's enough
snow to cover most of the grass in the yard. I'm hoping for a little
more, just to settle the dust.

January 23, 2003. The thermometer outside our window indicated
10 degrees below zero this morning. I decided not to listen to the radio
for Alexandria's reading. I saw the operator of a tow truck getting
ready to haul a car on Main Street away. That's not a very common sight
around here: I assume that the cold temperatures caught up with
someone's engine.

January 22, 2003. The temperature at Alexandria, Minnesota,
was 9 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) this morning. It was fairly warm
here in Sauk Centre: 6 degrees below zero outside our window. Tomorrow
will be colder, the weather forecast says. I wish there were more snow
on the ground. With mostly bare ground, and just a few patches of snow
less than an inch deep, I'm afraid we may have some problems with pipes
freezing. Still, I'll take this climate over others: it isn't boring.

January 17, 2003. One of the latest meth lab busts in this
area happened a week ago, just a few blocks from where I live. That's
uncomfortably close.

On the positive side, we finally have a little snow on the ground:
and near-zero temperatures to remind us that it really is winter.

January 10, 2003. After ridiculously warm temperatures this
week, we finally got some sensible weather last night. Howling winds and
temperatures dropping to the teens. By morning, "cat track" snow had
fallen.

The municipal Christmas decorations came down right after New Year's,
as usual. A few homeowners still have their displays up.

December 12, 2002. By now some parts of Sauk Centre are
spectacular, with brilliant and colorful yard displays. One of my
favorite decorations this year are the all-blue icicle light strips.

November 22, 2002. There are, today, three houses on my
five-block route to work with Christmas decorations up. I went home by a
different route, and saw three more. And it's not even Thanksgiving yet!

November 14, 2002. MS Fabrics, a cloth and sewing store in a
mini-mall west of downtown, is closing. The B & K Hobbies store, on Main
Street, is empty (see March 18, 2002).

Saturday, November 2, 2002. All Soul's Day today, and the St.
Paul's Church rectory was burgled. While Father celebrated the 4:00 Mass, someone
made off with the Holy Day collection.

Thursday, October 31, 2002. Halloween and colds don't mix, so
the family missed trick-or-treating this year. I think the cold kept
quite a few folks inside. On a happier note, a house several blocks
north of us had a fine display up: glowing candy corns a foot and a half
tall marking the front walk, with a discrete plastic ghost shedding
light and a slight smile to the left of the door.

Wednesday, October 23, 2002. There's still snow on the ground
this evening, left over from Sunday night's three inch snowfall. A few
flakes have come down since then, but the vast bulk of what we have
today arrived then. The local paper
featured a front-page photo of a snowman this week.

Thursday, October 17, 2002. Snow was falling this morning.
Much of it was gone by evening, but it looks like we got a good three or
four inches. Bushes and tree branches were bent down, especially since
we still have many leaves on the trees.

Tuesday, October 8, 2002. I saw lights up on a few houses this
evening. Christmas lights? This early? On closer examination, they
proved to be Halloween lights.

Monday, October 7, 2002. I believe that I witnessed the first
snowfall in town this morning. The flakes made a pretty scene, barely
filled in spaces between the leaves of grass, and were gone without a
trace by afternoon.

Sunday, October 6, 2002. No church bells on this side of town
for about a year or so. Our Lady of the Angels, down the street, is
getting long-overdue attention. When folks took a careful look, during
the renovation project, the bell tower proved to be held up by clay
tiles. On top of that, the corners weren't bonded together properly.
Father Statz said "it's a miracle" that it didn't come down earlier.

The bad news is that fixing the church will cost more now. The good
news is that, in addition to fixing known problems, like the leak over
pew 19, this project stopped a disaster.

Saturday, October 5, 2002. Downtown, this week, in the place
that was selling Christmas decorations in mid-September, I saw some of
the new Christmas tree ornaments. Prominently displayed, and I'm sure
destined for a tree near here, was not only an apparently
glow-in-the-dark replica - in purplish blue - of the Star Wars Death
Star from Return of the Jedi, but a figurine of Darth Vader. With
his light saber.

Friday, October 4, 2002. Some time ago, an anonymous tip
alerted a Minnesota state agency that ancient burial mounds were near
the old correctional facility in north Sauk Centre.

Then, on Friday the 13th, last month, work at the Lakeridge improvement site, on the north side of Sauk Centre,
stopped! Bones had been found! Rib bones! The police were called in, and
they called on State Archeologist Mark Dudzik.

Sure enough, bones are in the soil there. After a thorough investigation, they proved to be buffalo bones.
Three hours after the gruesome discovery, it was back to work.

Friday, September 20, 2002. Schwan's Ice Cream is something
that has been a part of my life for as long as I remember. I don't
believe I ever ate any, but those yellow trucks with the white swan on
the side are a cherished part of my childhood: and they're still around.
My wife now and again reminisces about her favorite flavors. This week I
discovered that people can order from Schwan's on the Web. You'll find
the link under Places to Shop in Some Web Sites From
This Area. The listings on that page have been expanded a
bit today.

Friday, September 13, 2002. Picking up one of those one-use
cameras downtown, I noticed Christmas decorations for sale on the shelf.
I believe that this is the earliest that I've seen a snowman, plastic or
otherwise.

Wednesday, September 11, 2002. A caravan of ambulances, police
cars, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles came into town, filled
the county fairgrounds with flashing lights and horns, and moved on.
They were honoring the emergency workers involved in last year's attack.

Sunday, September 8, 2002. There's an example of real chutzpah
on a billboard by the Interstate's westbound lane, about a mile before
you reach the first Sauk Centre exit. It reads:

"UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MORRIS
America's Best Public Liberal Arts College"

Saturday, September 7, 2002. Some things have changed in the
year (almost) since September 11, 2001.

More flags are up: some spots are awash in red and white stripes and
blue-backed stars.

Folks in the local Post Office wear photo-id tags. I suppose it's for
security, but in this town if there was a stranger behind the Post
Office counter, we'd all know it.

I saw in the paper that
there will be a sort of march through this area, honoring the emergency
workers who, by their actions almost a year ago, reminded us that "hero"
isn't a childish word.

Saturday, August 24, 2002. The Sauk River level is down, a
little, but we still have plenty of evidence of the recent heavy rains.
We've had it easy, compared with some folks. I drove through the Red
River Valley last weekend, and saw too much cropland under water. Not as
obvious as standing water where grain should be is the effect on
harvesting. One outfit up there has crops ready, but hasn't been able to
overcome the mud yet.

Monday, July 29, 2002. I saw the last of the Stearns County
Fair leave today: two food concession booths, being towed north on Main
Street. We didn't have as much of a midway this year as we usually do.
The item I missed seeing most was the Ferris wheel. Plenty of folks
showed up, though: and got very wet Saturday, around noon. Unofficially,
we got two or three inches in an hour or less. We seem to have missed
the worst storms, though: They had softball-size hail near Tyler MN
(that's west of Minneapolis), and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International
Airport was shut down last night while a storm passed.

Saturday, July 20, 2002. Today was "Sinclair Lewis Days:"
quite a big event here in Sauk Centre. This year, I volunteered to help
out with the "Sinclair Lewis Days Parade." The original idea was that
I'd drive my minivan for a local group. The van's engine got
temperamental this morning, and I wound up driving someone else's: a
much larger and cleaner vehicle. The parade started some time in the
early evening.

This was the first time I'd seen a parade from the inside in well
over thirty years. I was in unit 95, so the spectators were a bit worn
out by the time we got to them. The parade route is about a mile long,
roughly half in a residential area and half on or near Main Street.
Folks were sitting or standing one or two deep on the lawns in front of
houses.

When we got near Main Street ("The Original Main Street" it says on
the signs), folks were two or three deep, four to five where there was
room. Quite a few of the places along the route, even on Main, have lawn
in front of them. Some, because they're still houses, others because
they started as houses before being taken over for business purposes.

The unit in front of me, and quite a few others, had a habit of
tossing candy to the folks by the road. Sometimes they didn't throw very
hard, and the candy landed ten or fifteen feet out from the curb. That
made life interesting, since youngsters have a habit of darting out to
pick up the candy. Not just youngsters, either.

A gentleman who, from his appearance, might have played basketball
sometime just after the Great Depression, waved at one of the
candy-throwing units. They lobbed a candy stick to him, as he stood in a
front yard. They overshot his
hand by a slim foot. He waved his thanks and retrieved the treat.

At the other end of the age range, I saw a young father sitting on a
lawn chair by Main Street, with a small baby fast asleep on his
shoulder.

Fireworks followed the parade. We don't do fireworks, locally, on
Independence Day, but we put on a show for Sinclair Lewis Days.

Saturday, July 13, 2002. Minnesota (and other parts of the
continent) got a very great deal of rain this week: mostly around the
time I made
the July 10 entry. Our house is okay, with just a little water coming
down the chimney. That's one advantage of sitting on a sandy ridge.

The Sauk River was still noticeably up on Friday, and I've heard of
flooding here in town and in towns around here: everything from water in the basement to a
convenience store with a wading pool where their parking lot used to be.

Wednesday, July 10, 2002. We've had the first Fourth of July
weekend under the new, less restrictive state of Minnesota rules. This
year, I was delighted to see sparklers and poppers for sale in stores.
This is a more like the Fourth of Julys I remember.

Tuesday, June 26, 2002. Driving by Sinclair Lewis Park today,
I saw that we have a new bridge. It's a small affair, just long enough
to span a tiny stream that runs into the lake. The old bridge was a
culvert with concrete poured on top. Now we have a fine, sparkling white
walkway on the path between the band shell and the playground.

Monday, June 24, 2002. Going through clippings this weekend, I
ran into a beauty from the June 11
Sauk Centre Herald's editorial page. At 8:00 in the morning the
previous week, someone involved with the Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home got
a call from a telemarketer. The caller wanted to sell Mr. Lewis special
window glass. For the record, Mr. Sinclair Lewis died over fifty years
ago, and is no longer accepting calls in Sauk Centre.

Tuesday, June 11, 2002. The Cenex Co-Op in town went out of
business a while ago. Now, the building out by the Interstate that they
had moved to has been torn down. Today, only the larger pieces of
concrete are still in place. I understand that the old Cenex building,
downtown, will be converted into a restaurant of some sort. Times
change. When we moved here, I remember someone at the Cenex, they were
downtown then, persuading me to become a member, so that I'd only have
one gasoline bill per month. I joined, and in the long run it was a good
idea.

Wednesday, May 29, 2002. Eight days ago, Tuesday the 21st,
some pathetic creature set fire to "The Little Red Schoolhouse" down at the
interpretive center. Happily, someone was driving by in the wee hours of
the morning and called the fire department. The structure can be
repaired, but many of the irreplaceable old books and objects inside are
gone. Quite a few people go through there. This summer I'm afraid that
they'll be disappointed.

Thursday, May 16, 2002.Star Wars opened about an hour
and a half ago in the local
theater. I expect that I'll be taking the family there soon. It's
nice to have a four-screen theater downtown, with equipment that's good
enough to rate a first-release showing of Star Wars.

Saturday, May 11, 2002. This is the day before Mother's Day,
and fishing season opener: not the best example of scheduling in
this country's history.

Monday, April 29, 2002. The news called the weekend's weather
a "freak snowstorm." I'm inclined to agree, reading about what happened
south and east of us: up to 20 inches in parts of Wisconsin and
Minnesota, with at least four traffic deaths.

Sunday, April 28, 2002. Snow covers the grass, all but the
tips of the new green growth. The snow should be gone soon: it was
raining this morning, with more on the way tonight, the forecast tells
us. That's "spring" in Minnesota.

Saturday, April 27, 2002. It's snowing outside, but by
mid-afternoon there had been no accumulation on the ground. By evening,
though, the grass was covered.

Wednesday, April 24, 2002. About $30,000 worth of
methamphetamines, plus $8,000-plus in cash explains why some guy took
off from a routine traffic stop in Osakis, a town up the road. The
Douglas County K-9 unit located the driver of the car after he gave up
trying to outmaneuver Osakis police and took off on foot.

Monday, April 22, 2002. This morning there were a couple
inches of snow on the yard. This evening, the snow is melted: except for
a few small patches near the north side of the house. Spring in
Minnesota is the season when snow melts faster.

Sunday, April 21, 2002. Less than a week ago, we had
temperatures in the upper 80s. Fargo, North
Dakota, north and west of here, had record-setting heat. Then it snowed
in Fargo. Now we have a back yard covered with snow. We've been sliding up and down the
thermometer this last week. I love this climate! It is not boring.

Monday, March 18, 2002. On my way home today, I noticed that
Sauk Centre has a new store downtown: B & K Hobbies, I believe the name
was.

Saturday, February 9, 2002. We buried Elizabeth Marie today.

Tuesday, February 5, 2002. Sadly, Elizabeth Marie died
yesterday and was born early this morning, shortly after midnight.

Saturday, February 2, 2002. This "Seasons" page is getting
quite long: too long, perhaps. Don't hold your breath, waiting for me to
change it, though: my wife and I are expecting a baby. Today is the
official due date. Of course, that comes with a two-week margin of
error. These are exciting times!

Saturday, January 19, 2002. I read in
the paper this week that One of
Sauk Centre's police cars has a new onboard computer, with a companion
unit in the dispatch office. Among other things, the police officer can
call up data about a vehicle in seconds, not the minutes it used to
take, use e-mail and get map information. The other police car should
have one of these computers soon.

The weather, by the way, is now quite cold: sub-zero, in fact, the
other night. One thing I like about this area: the weather isn't boring.

Saturday, January 12, 2002. The weather has been very warm
(for Minnesota) this week. We usually get a January thaw, but this one
set records in a few places.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001. Snow. Lots of snow. Snow in
drifts. Snow blowing across the windshield. Near-zero traction at some
intersections. Yes, this is definitely winter. Even the Sauk Centre
schools were closed today.

The worst of this storm seems to have gone south of us. 28 inches of
show came down on Willmar, I hear. That's straight snowfall, not
drifting.

Storms showcase qualities I like about the people in this area. Last
night I drove past a little old lady whose car was nose-down in a drift
near a street corner. I drove around the block. By the time I got back,
two teenage boys were shoveling her car out, and their dad was on the
way. Everyone was gone, and I trust in a heated building, by the time I
returned from a little equipment-tending at my job.

Our street department had the streets clear in good time today. My
kids had just finished clearing the driveway, when a plow went past,
throwing up a new ridge. The kids were not pleased.

Monday, November 26, 2001. Yesterday it was almost
shirt-sleeve weather. Today the first winter storm of the season is
starting. I think I'll call this the start of winter.

Sunday, November 25, 2001. Thanksgiving Day is over, red and
green decorations went up over Main Street a few days ago, and my family
is getting back to business-as-usual. At least, as much so as is
possible in the holiday season.

With the help of two daughters and a son, I got my oldest daughter on
a bus for the trip back to college. My wife had done the hard part
earlier: getting daughter #1 packed. It was a treat, having all the
family under one roof again, hearing a guitar in the north room, and
having an unexpected visitor hang out with me while I tried to get work
done on the computer.

Mom didn't see our daughter off, since she's due in about two and a
half months. The baby is already a noticeable percentage of her total
weight, and she preferred to stay home.

Sunday, November 18, 2001. I was out driving last night and
noticed that more people have their Christmas light displays up. Looking
at the calendar, I see that Thanksgiving hasn't happened yet. Good
grief! I'm all for promptness, but what's next: Halloween decorations up
after the 4th of July?

Please, don't misunderstand me: One of my favorite parts of the
holiday season is that brilliant spangle of colored lights that
transforms the evening into something out of a fantasy. And I do
understand that, in this climate at least, it is easier to put up
displays now, than when there's a deep layer of that white, fluffy stuff
on the ground.

On the other hand, one way of keeping something special is to keep it
restricted in time and space. With an apparently abrupt change of
subjects, remember when the sports seasons started to overlap? I
remember a cartoon that showed a man watching four television sets: one
each of baseball, hockey, football and basketball. Here's the point:
When the sports seasons started spreading out, there were concerns
voiced that interest might flag because of the (perhaps excessive)
amount of exposure. I suggest that even the sparkly Christmas
decorations might face a similar threat.

Wednesday, November 7, 2001. The first Christmas lights I've
seen this season were up this evening. I saw the them on my way home
from work. The householders have almost covered the front of their
place: a fine display, and up before Thanksgiving!